skin

On a day out at the beach when I was young and obviously hyperactive, I was told (and believed) that I would only get a suntan if I lay very still and was very very quiet - took me years to work that one out....

Minnie

I had a very distant aunt who had a very old, faded and distorted tattoo on her arm. When I was a little kid, I used to think that the green splotch on her upper arm was actually where a bird had pooped on her and left a permanent stain.

Stephanie

I had never heard the term "colored" used to describe a person until I ran across a reference to "a little colored girl" in a children's book I was reading when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I assumed it meant she was rainbow-colored - and I thought "How cool! There are people that are all different colors?!"

Barbara Wills

I thought that a birthmark was your date of birth stamped on your skin when you were born, like an "approved" stamp and everyone had one. When my mom told me I had a tiny one on my back, I spent hours looking in the mirror trying to find this stamp!

Katya

I have a mole on my stomach and not until a few years ago did I realize that it really was a MOLE... not the result of a cockroach bite from my baby years. I'm 17 years old.

Charita

When I was about five, my older cousin told me that cashmere was made from the skin that was punched out when you got your ears pierced.I doubt I believed it even at the time, but I still cringe when someone walks by me in a cashmere sweater!

Madelyn

When I was a little girl, I used to believe God left me in the oven longer then my brother and sister. I was the middle of three kids. My brother and sister had blonde hair and blue eyes. I however had caramel colored skin with brown hair and green eyes. When I asked my Mom why I looked different, she told me God left me in the oven longer that was why my skin was darker. She also told me that my eyes where green because some of the color from a rainbow fell into my eyes on the day I was born.

Annmarie Slaise

my sister believed up until about age 6 that coloured people, bevcasue she had never known many, were "chocolate" people. It took alot of convincing without her trying to eat one before she decided that they just had different coloured Skin!

Anon

I have a birthmark on my leg, which kids would say looked like different things in grade school. I thought it was roughly in the shape of the outer outline of a paper clip and wondered what made it that specific shape. One night I dreamt that it would change shape on its own, but that I could also change its shape by putting a sticker on it and then taking it off; the birthmark would then take the shape of the sticker's silhouette. So at one point I put on a sticker that was, of course, of a paper clip, and kept it on for a long time so that the shape eventually became permanent. I believed the dream was real after I woke up, and I also thought that I could still change my birthmark's shape by placing stickers on it. The only reason that it didn't work so well was because I couldn't keep any of them on long enough (the sticker either fell off or I had to take a bath).

J.J.D.H.

I was born in Tanzania, E/Africa of Indian origin. There were some white people with freckles. My dad told us that the reason white people have frckles is because they eat lots of tinned food and we non whites didn't as we could't efford tinned and always had fresh food! Can you imagine my red haired freckled g/friend's face when I told her that?!!!

Batook

I remember when my aunt told my sister that rubbing bruises help it heal. But I didn't hear it so I asked my sister what Aunt said, my sis told me that I have to rub my bruises really hard and if I didn't, sharp pointed bone-like things would pop up out from my skin when it rained. So for a couple of years I believed this and whenever I got a bruise I kept rubbing it.

willsun

When i was wee i thought i could get a suntan from a radiator... so i used to sit in front of one for hours and when my back got all red i thought i was sun burned... i was a strange child...

Frankie

When I was a little girl we got a puppy who looked like a cow- white with big black spots. as she got older, she got a lot of little black freckles, and my dad used to say that she got a new freckle every time she did something bad. well, I had (still have) tons of freckles! I thought for sure that it meant I was a bad child in comparison to my freclke-less sisters and classmates.

Elisa

I used to think wrinkles came about because people just grew too much skin.

i remember the first time i realized i was different colour (around 5 y/o) then the other kids, (i'm biracial and grew up in a completely white neighbourhood) i asked my grandmother why i was different (not know what to say) she said i was "left in the oven too long". i actually believed that for quite sometime.

Mona

When I was 3 or 4 or 5, I used to think that the hair on your arms and legs were really bug antennaes, and that when people said that bugs are everywhere, that they meant also in our skin.

robbin

Sometimes I got words mixed up if I heard them at separate times. Once the door got left open and my grandma said a draft flew in.Another time my sister had a red spot on her neck that was itching and my grandma said it must have been her gland.I thought "gland" was the word she had used when she really said "draft" earlier, so I got the impression that a "gland" was something that invisibly flew in the door and attatched itself to your skin and caused a rash.

Carrie

When I was a little younger, I used to believe humans were able to change the color of their skin according to the color milk they drank. My mother has very fair skin with freckles and my Dad has a very dark complexion so I thought he drank chocolate milk to get his dark skin tone.